


I Rival any Fucking Man

by Devilc



Category: Spartacus and Vikings
Genre: Crack Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she refused to marry the fat, red-nosed old slug he found for her, Saxa's father shipped her off to a nunnery as punishment.</p><p>Saxa has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Rival any Fucking Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turnonmyheels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnonmyheels/gifts).



> Assumes you've seen through S3:E9 of Spartacus, and S1:E5 of Vikings.
> 
> Written with love for Turnonmyheels and expanded from a comment fic written when she said she wanted Lagertha/Saxa. (Proofed, but not beta'd. ) I play a bit fast and loose with British history. (I mean, beyond the obvious of writing Saxa and Gannicus into Vikings.)
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a tongue in cheek labor of not for profit whatiffery written for a friend and because I love Saxa and Lagertha and because I'm going to miss Spartacus (which is copyright its respective owners) but I'm enjoying the sheer ongoing crack of Vikings (which is copyright its respective owners).

When she refused to marry the fat, red-nosed old slug he found for her, Saxa's father shipped her off to a nunnery as punishment.

So what if he was rich and a lord? He had a prick the size of a boy's, and about as useful, too. (The night before the wedding, Saxa slipped out of her chamber and into his and tried him out. Or, more accurately, she _tried_ to try him out, but nothing doing.)

The morning of the wedding, her father and two of his men dragged her -- just short of kicking and screaming -- to the altar. Midway through the reading of the vows, Saxa made her move. After punching both the fat old lord and the priest in the face, she hiked up her skirts and ran out the side door of the chapel and straight into the arms of a long-haired wild Celt named Gannicus. Instantly sizing him up as a man of action, Saxa tore the gold chain -- a gift from her intended -- from around her neck and said in broken Gaelic that he could have that, and more, if he got her the hell out of Monkchester, right fucking now.

He grabbed his horse and laughed as he swung her up to ride behind him. Saxa clung to him -- and not just for dear life -- as they tore through the streets.

Her father, his henchmen, and the shire-reeve captured them a week later just outside Bere-wīc.

"Every night we drank like fish and fucked like rabbits," were the first words Saxa snarled in her father's face when they hauled her over to him. His fist instantly found her mouth, splitting her lip before she could tell them about the nights that she and Gannicus shared a farmer's daughter, _and_ that it was her idea to do so.

Saxa held her head high and with the look in her eyes she dared her father to hit her again.

Gannicus, it turned out, was a trusted vassal and close friend of the fearsome King of Strathclyde, the one they called Spartacus, who (with Gannicus at his side) a few years back seized the mighty fortress of Alt Clut through a cunning plan and then kept it by besting any who dared to try and take it from him.

Gannicus bristled with anger when Saxa's father hit her, but he kept his voice strong and steady when he told them, "If you will release me, I will pay the wergild and take her to wife."

The torc around his neck alone could pay her wergild thrice over if the coin left in his purse after their week of wine and wenching couldn't cover it. A good match. A better one, actually, than the stinky old goat that her father wanted her wed to.

Her father, damn him, would have none of it. As they bundled her, trussed like a pig, into the back of a wagon, Saxa caught one final glimpse of her wild Celt, bound and fettered, tied to the back of his horse like a sack of meal as the shire-reeve's men lead it towards the border between Northumbria and Strathclyde. As much as they wanted to, her father and the shire-reeve dared not kill Gannicus for fear of bringing the wrath of Spartacus down upon them. (And, if they were lucky enough to survive _that_ , they'd then have to face the wrath of King Aella, for having provoked the mighty Lord of Alt Clut, provided Spartacus hadn’t conquered Northumbria in the meantime.)

Saxa sighed inwardly and took some solace in knowing Gannicus would live to pleasure other women.

(She had many flaws, this she knew, but neither was she greedy nor selfish.)

To Saxa’s surprise, her father did not take her home. They went to the isle of Lindisfarne, less than a day's journey from Bere-wīc. She cursed her father and his lackeys loudly and at length as they hauled her across the mudflats (for she refused to walk) to the abbey. Her father tithed them her dowry to take her as a novice.

The nuns dressed her in a shapeless sack of itchy white wool and birched her for every transgression. Every Sunday, a priest, Father Ashur, visited the island to say the mass and hear confession. Saxa could tell that he _longed_ to get her alone, but that he lacked the courage. (The grunting and squelching noises as he podgered one of the other novices, a stupid mousy widow with eyes always pink from her sniveling and tears, turned Saxa's stomach.)

She wasn't allowed outside the walls of the abbey for fear she'd flee.

They put Saxa in the weaving room and forced her to work on a tapestry about the life of Mary Magdalene in the hopes it would inspire her to mend her ways. (As if she would ever voluntarily give up fucking.)

But worst of all, they didn't let her anywhere near the mead the abbey was famous for.

Every day in the chapel and in her dormitory, Saxa got on her knees and prayed to whoever might be listening for deliverance. (Preferably into the arms of Gannicus, or somebody equally lusty and skilled.)

Salvation did not come from the west, but from the east. Reavers in longships. Men much like the legendary Vandals and Visigoths from the scops' songs about the legendary Waldere and Hildegyth, his wife. Saxa's favorite of these stories told of how Waldere, armed with Mimming, his great sword -- forged by the legendary smith, Weyland -- prepared to take on Gunthere, their mutual enemy, and Hildegyth reminded him that there were only two outcomes for a warrior: glory or death. As a girl Saxa had dreamt of picking up a sword to see which of these fates she would earn. Now? Now, there was only the fate of the nuns: drudgery and death.

Saxa baffled the men who broke down the gate the night after the great storm. She did not cower and run, but _joined_ them, thanking them for coming and begging for an sword so she could help them split heads.

(No, she did not speak their tongue, but it was close enough to Englisc that these reavers got the gist. One of the men also tried to put his hands on her, but a slash from her sword put paid to that.)

When she had finished dealing out bloody retribution, her white smock soaked with red, these men gathered 'round and called her berserkr and shieldmaiden and found her a pair of hose, a tunic, boots, and a cloak to wear. They put her (and all the treasure of the abbey, including several barrels of mead) in their dragonship and sailed east towards their lands.

They talked to her of their gods: Odin, and Thor, and Sif, and Freya, of the Aesir and the Vanir, of Valhalla, of the World Serpent, of Loki and the rest of the Jotuns as the ship danced across the breaking waves.

She in turn taught them Gannicus’s favorite song. They sang it with gusto as they rowed.

Ragnar, their leader, a man as handsome and bold as Gannicus, proudly claimed her as his one prize -- though he did not call her "thrall" or put a rope around her neck -- when their sly snake of an Earl publicly cheated them of rest their treasure.

"Trust me," Ragnar spoke under his breath when they came at last to his stedding, and Saxa first saw his wife, a blonde woman with hair even more flaxen than hers and eyes like a hawk's, whose name was Lagertha. "Trust me," he repeated, as he scooped Lagertha up in his arms, heading into his hall, and shutting the door behind him, leaving Saxa with his children ... who had too many questions. She stumbled over the words (damn this tongue of theirs! almost like Englisc, but just different enough to trip you up like a fucking dog underfoot on a dark night) as she couldn't help but be distracted by the sounds of their parents’ enthusiastic fucking.

Later that night, after the children had gone to sleep, Ragnar and Lagertha came to Saxa and asked a question.

They didn't have to ask twice, or ever again, actually.

When the next summer came, Ragnar only reluctantly went a-viking.

And Lagertha and Saxa? Well, these were uncertain times, and the Earl (and his lap-dog followers) were not to be trusted.

The stedding needed two shieldmaidens to defend it (and keep the sheets and each other warm) until Ragnar's return.


End file.
